CAN building managment system
Source: CAN Newsletter June 2003
Many years of experience with CAN in automotive applications proved its flexibility and stability. Now, experiences with CAN micro-controller systems have shown positive results in large office building applications. The Mobimo tower in Zürich, Switzerland, for example, provides information worth more than two years of experience. There the PC-based building management system controls and optimizes all functions within the high-rise. First the controller software was created and optimized with hardware-in-the-loop technology, embedded by Delzer Kybernetik. After this, the automatically coded software was directly downloaded into the micro-controller. In order to optimize the building with this technology, the company used a dynamic simulation program. The simulation model for the building included the total array of functions: integral management and control for heating, cooling, daylight and electric lighting, air ventilation and the management of the multi-layer facade. The exact image of the simulated control strategy was realized on the basis of the CAN micro-controller system. The winter and summer periods of the years 2000, 2001 and 2002 proved the expected high congruence between simulation and reality. The PC management system collects the building data via CAN for analysis to optimize the process. The graphical interface shows the state of the building for every zone in traffic light colors: Green, yellow and red. The monitor on the picture shows that most zones are green. The few yellow zones show slightly offset temperatures in some areas. The absence of red zones indicate that there is no need for quick action.
